KING, the hundred

fifty-two: battle of the mountain

"nobody's your friend
at the start or at the end"

born alone die alone by madalen duke

"What the hell were you thinking?"

As soon as Avery opened the small door, the four of them killed the guards. They knew a single second of hesitation would get them all killed. The guards barely had time to turn their weapons toward them.

As soon as the fighting stopped, Avery rounded on Sarah.

"You could've gotten us all killed!" Avery seethed.

"What the hell was I supposed to do?" Sarah shot back. She gestured at the petrified couple still sitting on their couch. "Let them die?"

Avery hesitated for a moment before speaking.

"Yes." She said, simply. "They chose this. They knew there was a chance they would have to die for us. And now our position's been compromised. It'll be minutes before another round of patrols gets here, and then they're dead anyway."

Avery didn't even bother looking up. She knew what she'd see. Disdain and disappointment.

Instead, she bent down to pull her knife out of the first guard's head.

"I'm sorry." Avery said, looking at the man and woman seated on the couch with tears in their eyes. "But we have to go."

Avery did wish she could've helped them. The civilians.

But the fact was she was pretty sure everyone in here was going to die anyway. They were at a standstill in a three-way war. Something had to give, and the civilians were going to die first.

But Avery couldn't think about that. She couldn't get emotional until the war was over. She needed to think about getting three people to the harvest chamber.

They moved through the hallway in a tight group. Monroe and Miller stood in front with their guns up. Avery and Sarah trailed behind them with guns they stole off of the guards who attacked them.

"We see a guard, we kill them." Avery whispered.

Not even Sarah could find it within herself to disagree.

***

They crept down hallway after hallway. They only met one guard along the way and there was a knife through his forehead before he could even realize there was a threat.

Something was wrong.

Avery could tell something was wrong, but she wasn't sure why.

But then they got to the harvest chamber. Avery had never been in it before, but she could tell something was wrong.

"It's too quiet." Monroe whispered, echoing her fears.

"We don't have anywhere else to go." Sarah supplied, gesturing forward to the doors of the chamber.

It was then that Avery realized her mistake.

There was a fatal flaw in their plan, and she'd be lucky if it didn't get them all killed. Mount Weather had cornered them. Amidst the chaos, Avery hadn't even noticed that they only had one backup plan. Only one place to go if everything went south.

If the grounders were in there, they'd be an army. A force to be reckoned with. But if they weren't, and they definitely weren't, the delinquents were stuck with no backup plan.

Lexa and Cage had pulled the rug out from underneath them.

"It's a trap." Avery whispered.

"Yeah, probably." Miller started, cocking his gun. "But we don't have any other choice. Our people are in there."